Craig Gilner

Craig Gilner, the book's lead character, is a 15-year-old boy who lives in Brooklyn, NY with his parents and younger sister, Sarah. He is a freshman at the prestigious Executive Pre-Professional High School in Manhattan, but he is struggling there despite scoring a perfect 800 on the difficult admissions test. Craig saw a challenge in getting into the exclusive school, so he studied obsessively for the test, but slacked off immediately after getting accepted and is now falling increasingly behind and finding little motivation to catch up.

For several months, Craig has been suffering from depression that affects his ability to eat normally and causes thoughts to race around his head, a process he calls Cycling. His parents have been supportive, but things have not improved despite medication and therapy, so in a desperate moment, Craig decides to kill himself but changes his mind and goes to the...